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All the gadget blogs are covering Nikon's new S1000pj digital camera with integrated projector. Reader Sabre Runner recommends Engadget's writeup, which goes like this: "The Nikon Coolpix S1000pj has gone from crazy rumor to seemingly-real to whoa-here's-the-press-release in record time — the compact cam with the integrated projector was just officially announced, along with the three other cams we saw leaked earlier today. Leaked specs for the S1000pj were dead-on: a 12.1 megapixel sensor with ISO 6400 sensitivity mounted behind a 5x wide-angle zoom lens with five-way VR stabilization, and that LED-powered projector that'll put up a 40-inch image for slideshows complete with music, effects, and transitions. We're a little less excited about the $430 list price this thing will carry when it hits in September, but on the whole it's a pretty terrific idea and we're completely intrigued — looks like we'll be saving our pennies this month."

Interesting, TFA says "ISO from 100-6400 at full resolution";...but dpreview.com says "ISO 3200 and 6400 are available only for image sizes of 3M (2048 x 1536) or smaller."

For some reason, I tend to trust dpreview more, considering ithey have much more experience reviewing cameras of all kind.

I'd also like to know how good the projector quality is... I mean some projectors can display at 1080p, while some can barely do a blurry VGA. Considering the size of the camera, even projecting images at VGA would be a big accomplishment.

What, you don't trust the marketing video? It clearly showed a stable, properly keystoned image at high resolution despite the fact that the actor was shaking the camera wildly and projecting from an angle. Pretty awesome technology if you ask me.

Heh, watch the video, stabilization definitely doesn't work that well.

Speaking of bidirectionality, it's a shame they couldn't get the projector to throw through the camera lens, so you could adjust throw length (zoom) and focus. That would have made a much stronger argument for integrating the camera and projector IMHO; surely the optical elements and zoom mechanism are the most expensive thing in a camera.

Also I noticed that the anti-red-eye technology not only removed the fake daytime devil-like redeye, but it turned the little girls grimace in the 'before' shot into a big wide smile in the 'after' shot.

I'd also like to know how good the projector quality is... I mean some projectors can display at 1080p, while some can barely do a blurry VGA. Considering the size of the camera, even projecting images at VGA would be a big accomplishment.

Which of course is the point: such gimmicks as 10 lumen projectors are about as useful as a sandbag in the desert. 10 lumens output is so low that you pretty much have to have pitch black room to display anything, and if you expand the image to its theoretical limit of 40 inches diagonal, the amount of light per square inch will be so low as to render the entire exercise futile, even in total darkness.

According to the specs in the DPReview article, the projector is "VGA Quality", so I guess that would mean 640 by 480. Not great, but pretty impressive for a $430 camera. Light output is listed as only 10 lumens, so probably need a pretty dim setting for it to work well.

The image quality from compacts above ISO 400 is useless anyways, so the maximum is rather arbitrary. You could probably simulate a high ISO by grossly underexposing and then boosting the gamma in postprocessing.

That's just because Nikon hasn't figured out how to do that. If you look at some of the samples that DPReview has with recent Canon DSLRs with cranked up sensitivity, it's surprisingly good.

Canon EOS 500D / Review Sample [dpreview.com] Is a pretty good example at ISO 1600. You can see the degradation, but it's pretty good overall. It's still not really a good substitute for a tripod, but it's definitely acceptable for many things.

And no, you can't really simulate high ISO like that, you can sort of do that with film

If you look at some of the samples that DPReview has with recent Canon DSLRs with cranked up sensitivity, it's surprisingly good.

I said "The image quality from compacts above ISO 400 is useless anyways."

But, the reason why you're suggestion doesn't really work is that the information has to be recorded in the first place and if you're trying to boost gamma in post production rather than boosting sensitivity during production, there's just not going to be enough information to work with the camera just won

That's just because Nikon hasn't figured out how to do that. If you look at some of the samples that DPReview has with recent Canon DSLRs with cranked up sensitivity, it's surprisingly good.

Of course Nikon has figured out how to do it. The parent was talking about P&S cameras, which have tiny sensors, and are always crappy at high ISOs. Look at the recent Nikon DSLRs, and they're also pretty good. Actually, I think the current king of high-ISO performance is the Nikon D3 and D700 (both full-frame sensors), but Canon's full-frame DSLRs are also probably pretty good.

Cue the jokes. But when has advertising ever been honest? Did you know that there is a profession called "food sculptor" whose job it is is to carefully assemble food for advertising photography? That jucy hamburger patty is actually a cold item painted with glycerin.

As for "how far the product is from reality" that can be anything from "available now" to "let's drum up interest and see if it's worth paying R&D for this idea".

It's old news in the technology industry, too -- iirc IBM announced the OS/

Sure, but they just figured out how to do real green lazers (by 'just' I mean this last month), and the fake green lazers they've been using are energy and space hogs. LEDs are cheap, small, and they work.

I don't think they want this to compete with real projectors, they just want to add a feature to the camera that many will find useful: The ability to immediately show the pictures to a group of people. I can see plenty of times when that would have been useful, even if the quality wasn't top-notch.

Illegal in some places. Any laser-based projector is illegal in some places under offensive weapons laws, unless it is so dim as to be almost useless, or it is mains powered (this is the case in South Aus.). This even applies to some Class I lasers. This is a shame,s ince the technlogy is nice, but then we aren't allowed 18+ rated games either because of the same AG.

An additional feature enables users to 'airbrush' someone's face using the Skin Softening function to reduce the appearance of blemishes.

Nikon's Smart Portrait System with Skin SofteningFace-priority AF helps produce more satisfying portraits by adjusting focus and exposure for as many as 12 faces in the framed shot. Skin Softening function detects and analyses a framed subject's skin, and then adjusts smoothness to produce enhanced results. Smile Timer automatically releases the shutter when the subject smiles, while its Blink Proof function shoots two sequential frames, then saves the one in which the subject's eyes are widest open. Blink Warning presents an alert when it suspects that someone in the shot has blinked. In-Camera Red-Eye Fix automatically corrects any perceived red-eye effect before saving the image to memory.

Finally! Just what we need in a consumer model camera.Nobody will look anything like themselves ever again. [antiyawn.com]

Why bother with all this run-time photographic manipulation and fakery? Just preloaded the camera with a few thousand photos of people more attractive than you, doing exciting things you can't do, at interesting places you've never been, expressing emotions that neither you, nor they, were having.

Then every time you press the camera's 'shutter release' it time stamps one and another happy, but much improved, memory is captured for eternity. "This is me with someone who looks like Halle Berry abseiling d

Projectors take a lot of power, so you will not be able to use this feature for a long time. In the spec sheet they claim projector life of one approximately hour which will probably translate to 30 min max in real world use and on a full charge. But since you need to take pictures with the camera before projecting them you will probably end up with no more than 10 min of real use before your batteries are dead.

Some electronic devices do not translate very well into wirelessness. Projectors are a prime example.

Or...you could just save the $400 and take YOUR laptop over to grandmas. It probably has better than VGA resolution too.

This is about as gimicky as it gets. They should spend the R&D on less noisier sensors. I had a coolpix and it had the noisiest sensor I've ever seen and it broke after a two weeks with nary a single drop. The powershot that replaced it was rock solid till I dropped it from about 20 feet. I wouldn't want to drop my fz28, but it does take some pretty nice pictures and cost me a lot less

Yeah, but this is a great feature. You take a great photo at the bar, and instead of passing the camera around to all your drunk buddies with greasy fingers, you can just shine the photo on the wall. I was in the market for a new digital camera, and this plus the vibration reduction makes it the ultimate bar camera. A separate LED projector like this ALONE cost $299 just a couple of months ago. $400 for a camera you will probably have for 5 years and take thousands of photos isn't a bad deal, since you neve

Why? You take pictures at a party, or you've taken pictures earlier in the day, and you want to show them to your mates. Which is better, to have them all crowd round and try and see them on the 2" display on the back of the camera, or displayed on the nearest wall so that they can see them clearly.

This is not about not having a laptop handy, or showing grandma, it's about showing stuff you just took before you get the chance to upload them from the camera.

From what I see on Global Sourcing [globalsources.com] LED based projector technology is getting cheaper and more common. Cameras, especially Digital SLRs (which this isn't) normally have space for larger battery packs than other handheld devices. So this seem like a natural fit.

Man, I get heckled on a lot of AV forums when I suggest I want Nikon to fix the video issue with their bodies before I upgrade and you want them to put a projector in the body, I don't think their core audience for dSLR's will like that. I want to get more MP (my old D40 only does 6MP but at very good ISO sensitivity), the GPS tagging feature, and usable video. No I don't consider 5 minutes of motion jpeg to be usable video, if Nikon were to come out with unlimited (ok limited to 2GB) 1080p24 H.264 video li

The D40 uses a very old sensor (the one used in the D50 and D70). It's now two generations old, so if you upgrade to a D5000 or D90, you will notice a quality improvement, even in the ISO sensitivity. This is where Nikon has been the past few years, investing in decent high-ISO abilities. Now ISO 1600 on crop and ISO 6400 on full-frame Nikon cameras is clean enough to use for large prints.

The 5Dmk2 can only do 1080p for 12 minutes. This is to escape the EU regulation requiring a tax on video cameras, which are defined as any electronic device that can record video for 30 mins in one go. The tax is between 4.9 and 12.5%, and this is on top of VAT/tax you pay for in the EU anyway. Obviously the last thing Nikon or Canon want to do is fall under this tax, as it'd make their camera rather expensive.

If you want to record up to the file-system max, which is about 4GB, then you're limited to a shade under 15 minutes anyway, since the 5dmk2 records 1080p at 4.8 MBytes/sec. The D5000 could reach near 30 mins; recording at the 720p, 24fps option goes at 2.3 MBps which would give you near 29 minutes, if it were not for the artificial limit. The same could be said of the D90, which records at 1.7MBps, giving you near 40 mins; again, save for the limit. (Figures for the D300s are not out yet)

The 5Dmk2 can only do 1080p for 12 minutes. This is to escape the EU regulation requiring a tax on video cameras, which are defined as any electronic device that can record video for 30 mins in one go.

If it can only do 12 minutes, and the regulations specify 30, then that is most definitely *NOT* the reason. (If it was 29 minutes, I might be inclined to agree with you.)

Most likely the 12 minute limit is hardware based - my guess would be after that you exceed the onboard buffer, and it can't transfer to storage fast enough.

recording at the 720p, 24fps option goes at 2.3 MBps which would give you near 29 minutes, if it were not for the artificial limit.

The limiting factor is usually the sensor getting warm, that's why you'll only be able to record 12 minutes of video. The digital sensors still have a long way to go before they get really usable. For instance, all DSLR:s that I know of still uses a mechanical focal plane shutter. The best reason not to do any movie recording at all is to reduce dust that gets stuck on the sensor.

Let me be the first on record as saying if I could somehow hack a D90 screen on my D50, I would do it in a heartbeat. The D50 body was so perfect that they killed it and broke it in two, in order to create the crippled D40 and the somewhat usable D80 (though the 80 has a newer sensor, but not as good as the 90). I don't ever want to have to give up my D50. The only thing it lacks is the ISO sensitivity of the newer models.

This is where Nikon has been the past few years, investing in decent high-ISO abilities. Now ISO 1600 on crop and ISO 6400 on full-frame Nikon cameras is clean enough to use for large prints.Out of curiosity, is it real ISO levels that high, or faked, hacked ISO levels that high? My camera does up to ISO400, and a couple months after it came out, they released a new model that does ISO800. The sensor is identical - it was just a slight firmware adjustment that allowed it to run in noisy-as-hell mode. I thin

The 'native' max ISO on crop body Nikons is currently 1600 and you can do a digital push to 3200 at the cost of significant noise. The noise floor on the D40 is actually better than most of the crop bodies that followed it at its native ISO range but newer sensors have a higher native ISO so they will be less noisy where there is overlap (ie pushing the D40 is more noisy than not pushing the weaker sensor on newer models).

I cannot even remember when I bought my first digital camera, (early 2001?) but I paid MORE than $430 for it. It's a Sony, with 3.2 megapixels. No audio, and very low-res "movies". Devours AA batteries. 1" built-in LCD screen. It still takes great pix, so I'm still using it.

We've come a long way. A similar camera nowadays is built into a cheap cell phone!

Anyone complaining about the projector quality should stop and think for a moment...

It's a VIDEO PROJECTOR....on a COMPACT CAMERA....and it's the FIRST ONE...a cool moment in gadget history. Video projectors use to be three tube CRTs and weighed at least 40 pounds for a portable. You had to spend an hour waiting for it to warm up and performing tube alignment, keystone, etc. (been there, done that in 'the olden days' of multimedia presentation)

Yep, it's going to be very low power. Projectors are battery hungry. Yep it's going to be low resolution at first (640X480) but it's way better than nothing! That instant-review might be very useful, even at low resolution.

Yep, the badly produced PR video is faked. (why not just have the guy set it down on the table first?) but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt that it works, since it will be sold as a consumer product fairly shortly. They can make the projector image stabilization feature come later.:)

I like it how the projected image comes out of the lens you ordinarily take pictures with. This makes this camera a great practical joke: get everyone to pose for a photo, have them say "cheese" and when they do so, blind them with the projector.

I just photographed a small jazz combo playing at a local art gallery. Given the number of people passing my camera around to have a look at the pictures, it would have been extremely handy to have this device there.

And FYI, if memory serves, it has image stabilization and a small stand for when it's being used as a projector.

Your garbage is more of a myth than what you accuse the Bayer sensor of.

Bater sensors offer full luminance resolution. Chroma resolution varies but is less important. The common rule of thumb is that a 12MP Bayer sensor offers comparable overall performance to an 8MP full-color sensor, much greater than the 3MP you claim. There is boatloads of test data available if you would simply look with an open mind.

What is your definition of cheap? AFAIK the very best NiMh nowadays are Sanyo 2700 (for raw capacity). Probably Sanyo Enelooops are the best (or one of the best) for low self discharge. You can get them around 10$/10EUR (US/Europe) for a 4-pack - that would be usually from Amazon (or reliable ebay sellers) and includes usually shipping (if you order enough from Amazon for example, but that shouldn't be a problem).Is 2.50$/EUR per NiMH AA so much of a probl

I was able to get a set of 4 2450 mAh AAs for about the same, CAD. Granted, not as high capacity, but more than enough for just about anyone's needs, especially considering that it's quick to charge and carry a second pair.

No kidding. My first digital camera came with a rechargeable battery and it apparently spoiled me to the notion, because I was outraged when I bought my second digital camera and discovered it didn't come with one.

Of course, it came with a "lithium digital camera battery", but that's not a rechargeable battery (something they apparently assumed I knew, because it wasn't until I opened the box and read the instruction booklet that I discovered that lithium-ion batteries are rechargeable (and lithium batterie

Well, that's the problem. They don't exactly go out of their way to tell you they don't support modern operating systems. If they were honest about their system requirements, or put something on the box explicitly indicating NO 64-BIT SUPPORT or the like, then I might understand.

But they don't. Which is precisely the reason I bring it up whenever there's a Nikon thread.